In unanimous swipe, R.I. House abolishes master lever/ Poll

Thursday

May 1, 2014 at 10:22 PM

PROVIDENCE — After years of setbacks and seeming indifference from legislative leaders, a bill that would remove straight-party voting from Rhode Island’s election ballots cleared the House Thursday by a vote of 71 to 0.

Randal Edgar RandyEdgar1

PROVIDENCE — After years of setbacks and seeming indifference from legislative leaders, a bill that would remove straight-party voting from Rhode Island’s election ballots cleared the House Thursday by a vote of 71 to 0.

The bill, now headed to the Senate, won support even from lawmakers who had reservations during an hourlong debate — one dominated by backers who said the legislation sends a clear message that the House is listening to the public.

“They wanted change and they wanted it now,” said Rep. Dennis Canario, D-Portsmouth. “The one thing people didn’t want us to do was kick this can down the road any longer.”

Lawmakers who were more cautious questioned the impact on voters, particularly the elderly, saying they are used to drawing a single line that casts votes for all candidates of a single party who are running in partisan races.

But supporters questioned that argument, saying voters are more than capable of drawing lines for each candidate.

“Never underestimate your grandparents, because most of them are smarter than you are. They have been around a heck of a lot longer than we have, and they’re a bunch of smart cookies,” said Rep. Doreen Costa, R-North Kingstown. “So we can’t say that this is going to hurt the elderly.”

The vote represents a remarkable turn of events for a bill that until Tuesday had never received so much as a committee vote. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, D-Cranston, played a key role, saying that while he does not think the bill will change election outcomes, he was supporting it because of the strong public interest.

“It’s evidence of a symbolic change, it’s an indication that the House is interested in doing the people’s business and moving the state in the right direction,” said Mattiello, elected to the speaker’s post in March. “And to the extent that this is one piece of that, I was very happy to do it today.”

While the outcome, and Mattiello’s support for it, drew widespread praise, the bill’s future is uncertain.

Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, said Thursday that she is “going to keep an open mind” but needs to “review the testimony” and speak to Sen. Michael McCaffrey, D-Warwick, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held a similar bill for further study last month.

Rhode Island is one of 14 states that offers the straight-party option, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. There have been conflicting accounts on when the state first provided that option, but Rep. Scott Guthrie, D-Coventry, shared documents from the State Library Thursday that suggest it goes back to 1935, when lawmakers passed a law that authorized “the use of voting machines.”

Opponents of the straight-ticket or “master lever” option — so named because of the levers that were once present on voting machines — say it encourages voter laziness and favors Democrats in a heavily Democratic state.

But House Minority Leader Brian Newberry, R-North Smithfield, said it also hurts Democrats who are running in nonpartisan local races. The reason: Many voters mistakenly assume that a straight party vote covers those nonpartisan races.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Shekarchi, D-Warwick, abolishes the straight-ticket option and also calls for the secretary of state’s office to provide training and “community outreach” to make sure voters understand the option will no longer be there.

The initial vote tally was 70 to 0, but it was later listed as 71 to 0 on the General Assembly website, apparently because a lawmaker who missed the vote asked to be counted as voting in the affirmative. The four lawmakers who did not vote — Kenneth Marshall, D-Bristol; Eileen Naughton, D-Warwick; Peter Palumbo, D-Cranston; and William San Bento, D-Pawtucket — missed Thursday’s session.

While controversial, the straight-party option remains popular.

Of 446,049 votes cast in 2012, 104,833 — or 23.5 percent — used the straight-ticket option, according to the secretary of state’s office. Of those, 74,399 were Democratic, 21,139 were Republican and 9,295 were Moderate.